Snake cyberespionage malware is ready to bite Mac users

A sophisticated Russian cyberespionage group is readying attacks against Mac users and has recently ported its Windows backdoor program to macOS.

The group, known in the security industry as Snake, Turla or Uroburos, has been active since at least 2007 and has been responsible for some of the most complex cyberespionage attacks. It targets government entities, intelligence agencies, embassies, military organizations, research and academic institutions and large corporations.

“Compared to other prolific attackers with alleged ties to Russia, such as APT28 (Fancy Bear) and APT29 (Cozy Bear), Snake’s code is significantly more sophisticated, it’s infrastructure more complex and targets more carefully selected,” researchers from Dutch cybsersecurity firm Fox-IT said in a Wednesday.

Snake’s attacks have traditionally focused on Windows and it’s malware framework was originally designed for that platform. However, in 2014, researchers from Kaspersky Lab found a Linux component linked to the Snake toolkit, suggesting that the group was expanding its activities to other platforms as well.

for macOS that was signed with a stolen certificate.

Fox-IT has informed Apple’s security team about the Snake macOS variant and the certificate used to sign it will likely be revoked. However, given its resources, the cyberespionage group will probably have little trouble finding another certificate to abuse.